


Will I Run off the World Someday?

by Libennly



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, I'd sit in an empty street all day, Ig very vague character study lmao, and he talked at length abt the comforting feeling of an empty street, anyway lmao heres my fic, can you imagine?, look one time I read that one book abt the kid and the dog that was killed, no one there to ask you what you're doing, no one there to laugh or scron or even look
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23551591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Libennly/pseuds/Libennly
Summary: It’s two am when Jon decides to go for a walk.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Will I Run off the World Someday?

It’s two am when Jon decides to go for a walk.

He doesn’t usually go out for late-night strolls, his anxiety always spiking up at the thought of something less-than-human discarding all pretences under the guise of night, with no qualms about snatching him up from abandoned footpaths while the world slept. He never really thought too long on the concept of going out for two am walks either, either enraptured in statements and files or, well, enraptured in basically the same stuff but at home instead. The whole thing never struck him as appealing, he never liked the feeling of cold air or moonlit skies, but it’s two am now, and that’s all that Jon can think to do.

He half-heartedly puts on his coat, not bothering to button it up or even shrug it into a better position than halfway-off-his-shoulders. The floorboards creak under his heavy boots, the nice, big, black, leather boots that seem to swallow up his ankles and leave him almost anchored to whatever surface he stands on. He barely even remembers to stop and turn off the dim bulb overhead, not as if that has ever taken up much of his thought space but still, and he is dashing out of the door of his apartment less than ten minutes later.

He’s always liked his apartment building, as shoddy and broken-down as others may find it. The hallways are small, sure, and can only fit about three apartments on each, but that adds a certain familiarity to the whole place. Not that he’s ever even attempted to get to know hi neighbours, but the option was always there, y’know? And the elevator, small as it may be, is warm, janky and creaks as it rises up floor by floor, never stuttering or anything, but never quiet. The stairwell is echoing and spiralling, and his footsteps seem to be amplified by fifty as he clatter down the concrete steps. The glass windows lining the walls give him an overview of the street outside, as rain-sodden and as empty as he’d ever seen it.

The doors of the building opens without much fuss and he steps outside eagerly, the cold air rushing towards him like a slap in the face. It isn’t that cold, despite the normally frigid English winter nights, and he’s still able to keep his coat only half-on. The gravel crunches underfoot as he strides towards the main street. Jon relishes in the silence of the ghost town, however oppressive it was beginning to feel.

This is weird, isn’t it? There’s no way this isn’t messed up, because he’s lived in London for quit a bit now, and it’s never been this quiet. Sure, he’s able to tune out the general ruckus of traffic and drunken stragglers, but even that was always settled to a murmur in the back of his mind, never full, complete silence. His steps never echoed the way they did now, reverberating around the cobbled lanes, wobbling and increasing in intensity until his ears feel like they’re going to explode. Come to think of it, London, as he remembers it, doesn’t even have this many winding streets, no back alleys that seem to last for minutes on end before depositing you across from where you began. No empty alleyways anyway.

The whole area seemed more like a set than an actual place, buildings and street objects looking normal and real, but so unmistakably fake once you approach them. The more he walks, the more foamy and soft the bricks beneath his feet seem to become, until his boots are partially sinking into the once-solid pavement, and their heaviness is no longer grounding but more stifling. The cold isn’t light and easily ignorable anymore, he finds himself shivering despite the coat he’s now tightly wound around him, and the subtle breeze seems to sharpen into a whistling gale.

He’s running now, all hopes of a peaceful walk now abandoned. His boots sink into the once-concrete, making it almost impossible to gather speed.

Jon wakes up, sweaty and borderline hysterical. His apartment is quiet, though it doesn’t strike him as unnatural. He sits up, wiping the sleep out of his eyes with one hand and fumbling for his glasses with the other, and tries not to balk as a burst of cool air hits him. In blurry, red numbers, his clock reads ’02:00’.

He’s not going to go to sleep for a whole now, he knows this. And the thought of going for a night-time walk seems so enticing…

It’s two am when Jon decides to go for a walk, not for the first time, not that he knows that.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to make a jontim fic :( but I can't write good shit and I crave unearned validation :(((
> 
> I'm so very tired rn so some shit might not make sense lmao. I decided on a tense abt halfway through and tried to fix it?? But idk if I messed up so please take my attempt.
> 
> My tumblr is @libennly if u wanna see my shoddy posts.


End file.
